Jul 26, 2011

DAY 56

Invest 90L is finally taking the shape of a tropical cyclone. Located south of the western tip of Cuba with a lot of convection directly over the center of circulation. It also has some banding features around all sides of the storm.

90L is very close to becoming a tropical depression it will likely happen well before tomorrow night, it could even happen by 2am Wednesday morning which is the Hurricane Centers next scheduled advisory. The next step would be Don unless a surprise storm beats 90L to it. At their 8pm update, NHC was giving it a 40% chance of developing over the next 48 hours.

90L appears to have taken a slight southwesterly turn towards the Yucatan in the past couple hours. Now that the storm has started to revealed its true identity, the computer forecast models will be able to get a better grasp on the future of 90L. Most of the models do now develop 90L into Tropical Storm Don, but just barely. The HWRF is the only one that takes it to hurricane strength. As far as the tracks are concerned, there is no real consensus yet there. They are pointing from south Texas all the way to Louisiana. Until there is a closed center identified and the models will vary greatly. We should know more after the first recon flight into 90L occurs. That is scheduled for tomorrow.

So until tomorrow, at least we know now that there is a tropical cyclone in development and is likely headed towards the US coast.